


A Matched Set

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Do-Over, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Season/Series 15, Spoilers for 15.03., Wish Fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22452463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: Chuck is back, and making Sam pancakes again. And asking Sam weird questions about way back when Dean almost died when the Impala was sideswiped by the big rig. Chuck is there with an offer of an apology from Amara, and Sam has some big decisions to make.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Sam/Dean
Comments: 5
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters, only my words. Written for the 2019 [Sam Winchester Big Bang](https://samwinchesterbigbang.tumblr.com). Set in an AU post episode 15.03 world where Chuck is back and talking to the brothers again instead of trying to kill them. Thank you so much to my artist, [happily sammy](https://sunshinesam.co.vu) ! Be sure to check out the awesome [ art masterpost right here. ](https://sunshinesam.co.vu/post/190517128675/a-matched-set-art-master-post-written-by)

  
  
****

*****

Chuck is making him goddamned pancakes—again.

Or should he say God is making him Chuckdamned pancakes?

Either or, it’s annoying as fuck that he’s back and swanning around the bunker like he owns the place. Well, he does own it all in a way, Sam supposes, as in the way he owns absolutely everything in existence. But still, the pancakes that Chuck has made for him taste of bitterness and regret, not comfort and fluffy goodness like Dean’s do, and Sam can’t choke them down again, no matter how much syrup and butter he drowns them in.

This asshole still killed Jack without a second thought, right in front of them. And then Sam had to kill Rowena with his own two hands, because of the dumbass ghost apocalypse Chuck’s temper tantrum brought on. Sam doesn’t want to eat the damn pancakes and sip coffee and catch up on things like Chuck had blithely suggested. Sam wants to rant and rave and scream and shout, and speaking of all that sort of carrying on—where the fuck is Dean anyway?

“He’s not here right now, Sam. This is all for you,” Chuck says, a little wave at all the food laid out across the table. Chuck cuts another big section of pancake off and stuffs it into his mouth. He’s not quite as untidy an eater as Dean is, but the beard and mustache are getting syrupy and it’s just..it’s gross. Chuck—no, God is gross, how about that for a foundation for a new spiritual movement?

“I can’t—I don’t want this,” Sam says, staring down at the plate on the table in front of him.

The syrup glistens and the steam from the hot pancake wafts up with the scent of sweet sickly apologies.

“I need to set things right with you, Sam, and in my book, that means pancakes,” Chuck says, he picks up his coffee cup and seems to drain it, but it’s still full when he sets it back down.

That’s a perk of being a god (or The God), Sam guesses, one’s coffee cup can always be full and at the right swilling temperature if that’s what you want to put your energy into.

“Yes, my choices on how I spend my time and energy may seem strange to you, but they are my choices,” Chuck says, his hands clench on the edge of the table, almost like he’s nervous about what Sam will think about what he’s saying. “Of course I care about what you think, Sam. Don’t you get it by now?”

“Don’t I get what?” Sam asks.

“You’re the test case—my test case,” Chuck says.

“Test case for what?” Sam asks.

“For humanity, for the next phase. I mean, I’m really getting too close to the wire making my final design decisions here, but I needed to let it all play out to the ultimate conclusion. You and your brother…phew, you barely made it, but you guys did it! Once again, you did it.”

“Once again…wait, Dean’s a test case too?”

“Yeah, of course, you two are a matched set, like a pair of these salt and pepper shakers,” Chuck says, picking up the ridiculous kissing clowns that Dean had bought to tease Sam. Chuck shakes a little from each figure onto his fried eggs.

In Sam’s memory he can hear Dean joking, “One of them looks just like Cas with his trench coat, see, Sammy? And look he’s smooching your favorite kind of clown.”

“So if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying that Dean and I, that we’re a matched set of test cases for you to play with?” Sam asks, he’s still not over it, honestly he will never be over it that they’ve been messed with their whole lives, either by Chuck or Lucifer. It’s fucking exhausting being a plaything for all-powerful deities with too much free time on their hands.

“Yeah, absolutely, you’ve got it. Listen, you’ve got to remember the whole soulmates thing, right? You and Dean, soulmates, totally epic, right?” Chuck asks, forking up another load of pancakes.

Sam tries to drink some coffee and considers what to say, even though Chuck is eavesdropping into his thoughts. Sam internally screams “Get out! You’re so rude! Let me think!” He smirks at the flinch on Chuck’s face, he has no idea whether he’s still listening in or not, _but fuck him anyway_. Chuck flinches again, there’s his answer.

“Before we go any further, first tell me where Dean is, please,” Sam asks, putting a little whiff of begging on the last word. He even throws in a low level of puppy dog eyes, Dean always says that’s the hardest to resist.

“Dean is fine, I swear, he’s just not here where or when we are. It’s uh…complicated. Main thing is he’s back in the bunker, and he’s still sleeping in his bed, all snug as a bug, doesn’t even know you’re gone and is currently dreaming of…oh my…well I won’t spoil it for you.” Chuck waggles his eyebrows which is indescribably disconcerting. The last thing he wants is to hear Chuck describe one of Dean’s Busty Asian Beauty fueled dreams.

  
“Okay…uh, thanks,” Sam says, choosing to believe him, because what other choice does he really have? “So you were asking about if I remember the soulmates thing. I do remember, of course I do, it’s always meant a lot to me, to know that about Dean and me.”

Sam thinks about it every damn day. How they’ve never talked about it once, how it means everything to him that they’re soulmates, and he’s pretty sure it’s the same for Dean.

“I think if I asked him, Dean would say the same,” Chuck says.

“It’s really hard talking to you when you do that,” Sam says.

“Do what, eavesdrop on your thoughts?” Chuck says. “Sorry, dude, you gotta get used to it, just how I roll.”

“So what is it about us being soulmates? Why are you asking me?”

“I wanted to sit and have a talk with you about it,” Chuck says, his face going into this sparkly beneficence that makes Sam want to hurl. He looks like something on an evangelical preacher’s Sunday morning TV power hour program.

The beneficence turns down quite a bit so that it’s tolerable.

“I heard you, you know, that day when you thought Dean was gone.”

_Hah_ , Sam thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud, instead he asks, “Which day?” Because there have been a lot of them over the years. Too many to count at this point.

“True, true. I mean the time he was in the helicopter ambulance, I heard what you asked me to do, how hard you prayed, it came through so clearly, all that desperate love, it was inescapable, Sam. All of heaven above absolutely ground to a halt at your pleas.”

“Really?” Sam asks, pretty much gobsmacked by the idea that Heaven or angels or God would stop and listen like that…to him.

“And then what did we do next? We all sat back and watched to see what the Winchester men would do, because all three of you had big choices to make. It was fascinating. Your dad had to decide to make a deal with the demon he’d spent his life chasing down, your brother had to decide to not go with his reaper, he had to choose to stay with you, and you had to decide to stand up for Dean, for him to be put first for once with your dad.”

“You just watched? You let my dad do that? Damn himself to hell?” Sam asks, gritting his teeth against the anger he can barely control.

“It was his choice, Sam, It had to be his choice.”

“But you could have saved him!” Sam exclaims.

“No, that’s not how it works, sorry, but those are the rules, but here’s the thing, you guys went three out of three! All three of you did the completely unexpected thing, you each made the unexpected choice. And that’s why it worked, that’s how you ended up being able to save the world from the apocalypse that really was supposed to happen. I mean it had been scheduled for a very long time.”

“Our choices prevented the apocalypse?” Sam asks, gobsmacked all over again.

“Yeah, any other choices made, it would have all gone to shit, the world as you know it would have been wiped out. And, maybe more importantly to this discussion we’re having—it would have turned out much differently if we’d jumped in there to fix everything. It had to be up to you.”

“It was your ultimate test of free-will, huh?”

Chuck smiles widely and the sparkly beneficence ramps up again. He looks very very pleased that Sam has gotten it. “Yeah, the long-standing argument always was free-will versus fate, and this proved that I was right, once and for all. The big secret is, even though I’m the one writing the plot, the players still have choices to make.”

“Well, congratulations on your choose-your-own-adventure success, I guess,” Sam snarks.

“I was just showing the replay of it to Amara the other day when we were arguing about free-will,” Chuck says, pointedly ignoring Sam’s snarkiness.

“Yeah, what’d she have to say about it?” Sam asks, surprised to be reminded of Amara, it was good to realize that she is still around, still on the board as a possible way out of this hamster wheel.

“She was surprised at every twist and turn in your story, and at the end she was in tears, seeing what she’d done to you both, when she was trying to take Dean away from you.”

“The Darkness, your sister, Amara was crying over us,” Sam says slowly, enunciating each word as he tries to process the idea.

“She said to tell you she’s really really sorry,” Chuck says with a shrug and two upturned hands.

“Okay…” Sam says, not sure what to do with a passed-on apology from a primordial deity, just another day for a Winchester.

“And she’s going to offer you a do-over, to make up for it. Kind of like she did for your brother, when she brought your mom back,” Chuck says.

“This another part of your test-case scenario?” Sam asks, suspicious as hell about the sudden offer of a boon from said primordial deity.

“No, that’s all over with, I swear, you guys broke the rulebook so there wasn’t much point in continuing the game. At least not this time around,” Chuck says, rubbing over the bullet wound in his shoulder.

Sam winces as his matching bullet wound throbs. “This time…wait, you mean there’s going to be a next time around? Like another try at making a new version of our world?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, there always is, like I said, this particular world’s an ongoing long-term project of mine. I change the variables every time, sometimes you’re brothers, sometimes you’re not, sometimes one or both of you are women, soulmates yes or no, that kind of thing,”

“That’s—that’s kind of blowing my mind, Chuck. It’s wild to think that we’re just one iteration of your experiment and there will be more of us after we die or whatever. Have any other versions of us gotten to ask you this stuff before, just curious,” Sam asks, more than just curious, he’s incensed at the idea on his and his brother’s behalf.

“No, this is a whole new thing that’s happened, and with Amara in the mix again, it’s also changed the possible outcomes,” Chuck answers. He sounds a little bewildered, even overwhelmed at the idea of it, which is not too reassuring if God is having trouble dealing with reality or whatever. Or maybe he just really doesn’t get along with his sister. Based on what Sam knows about how Chuck has treated Amara, that’s probably a whole lot closer to the truth.

“Sure, okay, so let’s say I believe you about all this. What does Amara mean by giving me a do-over?”

“Like I said, I let her hear it all, your whole lives. And what she focused on was hearing a verbatim replay of what you said, what you prayed for with all your heart and soul when your soulmate, Dean was flying in that helicopter ambulance. She wants to give you that, what you were asking for in your prayer.”

Sam’s mind goes blank trying to remember what he’d been praying for all those years ago as the blades whirled over head, sucking up all the air, taking Dean away from him. “What did I pray for? It was so long ago, I can’t remember.” He suddenly hates it all so fiercely, this is so much worse than anything Lucifer had ever done to him, having to beg Chuck like this to give him a replay of something he should fucking be able to remember on his own. But so many things have been messed with in his head, angels and demons and it’s too jumbled in there, too much has been moved around, replaced with lies and half-truths, he can barely rely on the reality of now much less remember how things really happened in the past.

“I can fix all that for you,” Chuck says, lifting a hand. “You’ve kind of had a rough go of it over the last few years.”

“No…please, leave my head alone, it’s been fucked with enough, thanks,” Sam says.

“Fine, but you have to give me an answer for Amara, so here’s the same replay for you that I played for her. This is you—twenty-three year old, Sam Winchester, praying his heart and soul out for his brother, Dean.”

It’s like an all-consuming movie starts up, every single one of his senses are engaged, like he’s really there, it’s really happening all over again. His eyes can see the helicopter taking off, his skin feels the pressure from the wash of the rotors turning as it rises up from the ground. He can taste the tang of his own blood in his mouth and smell the copper stench of the blood of his brother and father still drying on his hands, the sound of the helicopter getting quieter as it flies off into the distance. Taking Dean away from him, and suddenly the emotion of it hits him as hard as another semi. He’s trying to hold off on feeling any of the desperation or despair, he needs to stay in control, in case more demons come after them. He needs to keep it together so he can get to the hospital where they’re taking Dean.

“Where are they taking him?” past-Sam asks, turning on the stretcher to follow the helicopter with his eyes until it disappears into the morning’s low cloud cover.

“Please sir, you have to lay still, so we can get you into the ambulance. You have to let us help you,” a paramedic tells him, adjusting the straps on the gurney that past-Sam is buckled into.

“Where’s my dad? Is he alive?” past-Sam asks.

“He’s on the helicopter with the other man,” the paramedic says, injecting him with something.

“You’re taking me to the same hospital, right?” past-Sam asks, a wave of nausea from the pain hitting him just as the pain meds start taking effect.

“Yeah, you’ll be there right behind them, don’t worry,” the paramedic says.

The last thing past-Sam does before he passes out is he prays. He puts all of his heart and soul into this prayer, a lifetime worth of **You Owe Me**.

_Please God, or whoever is out there listening, please keep them alive. Please make them be okay. I can’t—you’ve got to—they’re all I have in the world. Please, God, please make Dean be okay. I need him, I love him so much, I promise I’ll never leave him again if you bring him back to me. And my Dad too, he’s got to be all right, otherwise Dean will never forgive himself._

_We were trying to make things right, trying to kill the demon that ruined our lives. Isn’t that what you want, God? Slaying demons is what you want done, right? And that’s what we’ve done, and all kinds of other monsters, our whole lives we’ve done that, saved people. Please, if any of it counts at all, you have to save them now. It’s their turn to be saved, it’s our turn, please save my family._

_I’m begging you, you have to save Dean, I’ll never survive without him. I just can’t. If you bring him back to me, I swear I’ll love him so much it’ll fix him, make him right again, make him happy like he deserves. Just us together, that’s all we’ve ever needed or wanted. Please God, please. We can stop hunting if that’s not what you want us to do, we can be enough for each other, I know we can. Just give us a chance, let him live, please. I’ll do anything, give anything for him to be alive. If you want me to say yes to the demon, I’ll even do that. I’ll keep having psychic death dreams for the rest of my life if I have to, I’ll do anything. Please, God, you have to keep Dean alive, bring him back to me safe, whole and alive. I’ll love him and keep him happy, I swear I will._

And then there’s darkness descending like a bank of fog rolling over the stars, past-Sam catches a snippet of an approaching siren’s scream and then nothing else.

Sam comes back to himself, wipes the tears off his face and grimaces across the table at Chuck. “What’s she going to give me a do-over for out of all that mess? I don’t want to re-live my life without him.”

“No, that’s not what…a do-over would mean you’d all have the chances to make different choices from that point. All three of you would get a do-over, including your dad.”

“You mean the choices we all made that you just told me improbably saved the world from the scheduled Apocalypse? What the hell is this, Chuck? My choice would be Dean versus the world? You know who I’m choosing, I’ve been doing it my whole damn life. My dad is already in Heaven, there’s no way I’m messing with that. I mean, look what it did to our mom when Amara dragged her out of it!”

“NO…no, that’s not what Amara was offering you, she wouldn’t do that. Why is this so hard to explain?”

“Probably because you’re an all-powerful deity and I’m a human,” Sam suggests.

“True, true, but you’re more than that,” Chuck says.

“Whatever, like that’s ever helped me in my life,” Sam scoffs.

“Let me try again to explain this to you. Back then, when you promised to give up anything, do anything, that’s the do-over point. You and Dean and your dad would get to go through life again from that point, everything would be different, and it would turn out the way you put it in your prayer, normal. No going to hell for any of you, no losing your soul, or being possessed, no Dean going to Purgatory, no Mark of Cain, none of that.”

“And if I say no?” Sam asks, knowing that there has to be a catch here that he’s not seeing.

“Why would you? Wouldn’t you like a chance to do it all over again, but like a normal guy?”

“No, I don’t want to go back and do it all over again. But if I could have it from this point going forward, now that’s something that I would want.”

“Explain,” Chuck says.

“The choice I’d make is that I’d give up the chance to go back and live life all over again that Amara is offering and choose instead to live my life as it is now, from this point, going forward.”

“But how is that any different from what you’ve got?” Chuck asks, looking genuinely confused.

“The difference is that I’m making the choice to not go back,” Sam says. “And if you don’t understand what that means, then you’ve never really understood your favorite characters.”

“Oh, no, hold on now, of course I understand you, I created you!” Chuck shouts, the ceiling tiles seem to shake with his voice.

“I know that, and thank you. What I mean is, who we are right now, is all a cumulative thing from what we’ve done, the choices we’ve made over our whole lives together.”

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t want an easy do-over freebie?” Chuck asks.

“Easy? C’mon, we never ever choose easy, and nothing is ever _ever_ free, you of all beings should know that,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow at Chuck.

Chuck laughs quietly and nods in answer.

“And besides, what the hell would be easy about it, huh? To go back would mean losing myself as I am now, losing who Dean is now, and I’d never give that up in a million years. I know he would never give that up either. You have no idea what it means to us that we’re still here, we’re still together, messed up as we are, even after we’ve been running through your maze our whole lives.”

“How about if you remembered yourselves as you are now and still got the chance to go back?”

“What’s the point of that?” Sam asks.

“The point is having more time with Dean, in the prime of your lives. Heck, you could go back to school, be a lawyer, have some kids, who knows?”

“No thanks, I’m happy with who I am and where I am, right now and so is Dean.”

“But Amara wants to do something big for you, if she doesn’t get to apologize in a grand way she’s gonna be mad at me, and let me tell you from recent experience, that’s not a good thing.”

“Chuck, listen, if she wants to give us something to apologize to us, then how about both of you are hands off on Dean and I for the rest of our lives? No more interference, no more stories or experiments for us to play out for your amusement, no more of any of that.”

“But…”

“No buts, Chuck. I know you said we’re your favorites, your best matched set for your experiments or whatever. But how about seeing what happens if you don’t interfere with us from here on out? Think of it like a final test for your design.”

****  



	2. Chapter 2

****

“Just let you grow old and die like normal humans?” Chuck asks. “Even though you’re not.”

“Explain what you mean by that,” Sam says.

“Like I said before, both of you, I made you differently. You’re more than normal humans, it’s hard to quantify in a way you’ll understand, but basically you’ve been made to live for what will end up being the span of several human lifetimes. I made you both in such a way that you’ll last longer. I’ve been experimenting with a few new designs, and you’re the best pair so far.”

“Well, if we’re this new kind of human or whatever, then that changes things as far as this apology gift thing goes. How about this, the gift Amara gives us is that you both let us be for the remainder of our lives.”

“That’s open-ended and specific, well done, Sam. You know, you really could have been a great lawyer.”

“Thanks, I think? Uh…what are the chances that she’ll go for it?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, I think she will, actually,” Chuck says. “You sure you don’t need to ask Dean before I put this in motion?”

“No, I know what he’d say. Even though I’m sure he’d love the chance to be in his twenties again, he’d still want to be the real Dean, which is the Dean that he is right now.”

“Well, okay then, I’ll tell her what you’re proposing and just as a heads up, she’ll probably want to come see you two in person,” Chuck says.

“Thanks for letting me know. It’s going to be hard for Dean to see her. Uh…she doesn’t think she has a claim on him anymore right?” Sam asks, knowing he sounds jealous, because he knows he is, always has been, always will be. As messed up as that might be, it’s the truth. Maybe only he happens to know that truth, or maybe not. Sam tries his best not to think about it, that’s not something he wants to talk about with Chuck.

“Oh no, she definitely got the message on that one,” Chuck says. “Your claim on Dean has been well and truly established, Sam.”

“Can I ask you something?” Sam asks.

Chuck nods as he finishes his coffee, this time the cup is empty when he sets it down.

“When you heard me, praying back then, was everything I was asking for, was I asking for all that just because you made us soulmates?”

“No, that was all up to you, that was truly your decision, what you were feeling and asking for was all you. Soulmates is more of a category kind of thing, it doesn’t determine what the individual humans think or make them do something just because they’re soulmates. No, Sam that was all you. Being soulmates means that your souls are literally connected, they need each other to survive and thrive. You might unconsciously know that, but you wouldn’t necessarily act upon it.”

“Okay…uh, thanks,” Sam says.

“Finish your pancakes, and then we can go,” Chuck says, gesturing at Sam’s still very full plate.

Sam forks up a big bite and chokes it down with a swig of coffee which is impressively not cold even after that long conversation. The pancakes don’t taste of bitterness and regret anymore, more like hope and possibility. Not the type of meal he’s had in a while. He wishes Dean were there to share it with him.

“I’m sorry, this is a one person at a time kind of meal,” Chuck says, smiling as he drinks out of his World’s Best Dad mug which is full once again.

This doesn’t surprise Sam, but he still wishes Dean were there, this is going to be hard to explain to him without revealing everything he’s worked so hard to keep on lockdown all these years. Shit—he wasn’t supposed to think about it, not with the World’s Greatest Eavesdropper sitting across from him grinning like a fool.

“You probably should just tell him,” Chuck says.

“That’s not happening,” Sam says. “And I’d really rather not discuss this with you.”

“No, really, Sam, I mean it, tell him the whole truth. For you to get what you were praying for way back then, that’s what you need to do. I’m not going to offer to fix that for you,” Chuck says, setting his empty coffee mug back down. He stands up from the table and looks like he's about to clap his hands which means this is likely just about over.

“Wait, you mean it would be okay with you?” Sam asks in a sudden frenzy to know.

“Sam, those rules don’t apply to either of you boys, don’t you know that by now?” Chuck asks, clapping his hands and sending Sam back.

****

Sam wakes up, back in his bed, he stares at the ceiling and wonders if that was all a dream or what. He can still taste the pure maple syrup left on his lips and the coffee in his mouth. It was real. That means he has to warn Dean that Amara’s coming. And maybe actually talk to him like Chuck had just advised.

He gets up slowly and is getting dressed when his door slams open, Dean in the doorway, eyes ablaze with something…

“Did you get up early and make me pancakes? What is it, my birthday?” Dean asks.

“No…uh, those are leftover from Chuck actually,” Sam says.

Dean’s whole face and body turns into a literal human question mark.

“Really, he…uh brought me to a version of the bunker kitchen somewhere that wasn’t really here, and made me pancakes and coffee and talked my ear off. Basically, he was passing on a message from Amara. And I guess he left the leftovers for us here in the real bunker.”

“Amara?” Dean asks, now looking like a human exclamation point.

“C’mon, let’s go eat and I’ll tell you the whole saga,” Sam says, ushering his brother out into the hallway and heading him towards the kitchen.

“She’s not coming here, right?” Dean asks, as they sit down at the table that’s set for two, a heaping platter of pancakes, perfect and steaming along with a pot of hot coffee. The World’s Greatest Dad mug is back on the shelf and his favorite owl mug is on the table in its place.

“Yeah, unfortunately, she will be coming here, but only after he tells her what I said,” Sam says, he holds up a hand as Dean prepares to interrupt. “Just let me start at the beginning, okay? Chuck was asking me about what I’d prayed when you were in the helicopter ambulance. Apparently, all of them in Heaven heard me and stopped what they were doing just to watch the three of us. And according to him, we went three for three on making the unexpected choice which ended up stopping the scheduled apocalypse.”

“They watched us and what—didn’t do anything?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, pretty much. He told me about how we are his favorite pair of ‘test cases’ that we’re suited to being experimented on, partly because of being soulmates, and also that we’re a new version of human that lasts longer.”

“Lasts longer, as in lives longer than a normal human?” Dean asks.

Sam doesn’t point out that Dean skipped over the soulmate issue, like they always do, always have. “Yes, that’s what he said, we’re slated to last more than a few human lifetimes.”

“So how does Amara figure into all of this?” Dean asks.

“Apparently Chuck was instant-replaying our story and she seized on that whole bit of our lives. It was when they were debating fate versus free-will, and she heard my prayer from back then and kind of wanted to answer it for me to kind of apologize for her trying to take you away…from me.”

“Is she bringing mom back again?” Dean asks, hope bursting into view across his whole face.

Sam hates to break the news to his brother, but he’s got to do it anyway. “No, it’s nothing to do with Mom. Uh…Chuck said Amara has learned her lesson from how that all turned out, but what she was offering was, well it was a do-over for you, me and Dad. We’d go back in time to that point when you were getting transported in the helicopter and get to live our lives over from that point forward. No demons, no going to hell, no-one getting possessed.”

“What about the apocalypse though?” Dean asks.

“That wasn’t clear, seemed like it would have been postponed. The main point was that we’d be just regular guys, living regular lives. From the sounds of it, you would have survived your injuries without Dad making a deal with the demon, and none of us would have…you know, gone to Hell.”

“What’d you say?” Dean asks after a long quiet moment, struggling to maintain a somewhat neutral expression.

“I said no,” Sam says.

“Oh thank god,” Dean says in a rush, reaching for Sam’s hand across the table. He twines them all up together like they do with their bodies when they hug. Dean lets his hand go but Sam can still feel his touch. Dean’s eyes flash with so much emotion Sam can’t catch it all. “I wouldn’t want to go back and not be me, and have you not be you. And Dad’s in Heaven with Mom, right? So Amara needs to leave him the fuck alone where he is.”

“That’s pretty much what I said, and Chuck got kinda mad when I said he didn’t understand his favorite characters very well if he didn’t know what I’d be answering.”

Dean laughs, head back, full-on guffaw for a few moments that make Sam feel like he’s finally accomplished something good. Dean’s eyes are a little teary from all the laughing which makes it even better.

“That’s fucking awesome, Sammy,” Dean finally says once he’s done laughing.

“Thanks, and uh…I negotiated us a better deal since Chuck insisted that Amara was offering us something big and we needed to accept it,” Sam says, hesitating a little because of the tell-the-whole-truth advice from Chuck.

“I’m not one bit surprised that you got us a better deal, Sammy. So, what’d you get us? Please say a long vacation somewhere tropical,” Dean says.

“I asked for them to both let us be, to leave us alone for the remainder of our lives. Which are going to be a whole lot longer than we’ve been planning on living. We’re going to be off the hamster wheel, Dean, no more playing out Chuck’s stories, just us and what we choose.”

“Fuck, that’s…that’s really something. I never would have thought of asking for that,” Dean says.

“Yeah you would have, maybe not in the same words or whatever. You’d have gotten there though,” Sam says with a full confidence he feels down to his toes.

“When’s all this happening? Wait—has it started already?” Dean asks, eyes darting around the room as if there would be a physical sign.

“I’m not sure, Chuck said he was going to go talk to Amara, whatever that entails, and then he said she’d probably want to come talk to us in person. Bestow her gift on us and all that, right?”

“Like she did before, when she brought Mom back,” Dean says with a shudder. “She’s not going to try and connect with me or whatever again, right?”

Sam realizes he doesn’t know about that moment when Amara brought their mother back, they’d never talked about it, he’d been kidnapped and so much had happened after that. And the revulsion Sam sees on Dean’s face now just thinking about seeing her again makes him carry on with the full story.

“I asked Chuck, about whether Amara still had a claim on you, and he said no, she understood now what she’d done by trying to separate soulmates. So, you don’t have to worry about her coming here and putting the mojo back on you or whatever. She’s basically just coming to bestow an apology gift.”

“Soulmates, huh?” Dean asks.

Sam tries not to visibly react to Dean finally saying that word. After all this time it’s strange to finally hear from his brother’s mouth.

“Yeah, I asked him about that, and it was one of the variables he’d tried with all the versions of us he’d made. And get this, he told me that in some of his versions of us, we were women sometimes, or not even related.”

“Soulmates,” Dean says again, like none of the rest of it is even worth commenting on.

“What?” Sam asks.

“You know I think about that all the time? That we are that—you know…soulmates,” Dean says in a halting tone.

“He told me that you did, when I was wondering if you ever thought about it, because we never really talked about it,” Sam says.

“He was doing the mind-reading thing, huh. Fucking annoying,” Dean says, expertly changing the subject.

Sam yanks it back to the soulmate issue though, because he needs to do this. What Chuck had told him to finally take a chance and do. “I do too, every single day, I’m thankful for that fact, and that we know it and live it. Honestly, I can’t imagine it being any other way for us,” Sam says.

Dean looks at him in surprise, usually they don’t come out and say stuff like this. But this is God-level business, serious, maybe life-changing even.

“He said that being soulmates doesn’t determine exactly what we do or say or think or feel, that’s still up to us. It’s more like a category of connection between our souls. One that’s deeper or even necessary for us to survive.”

“Like I said, soulmates,” Dean says with a bare grimace of a smile.

“He also gave me some advice, to be honest with you about something…uh, something important,” Sam says, barely stopping himself from blurting it all out.

“Oh really? You’re taking advice from Chuck now?” Dean asks.

“Well, he is…you know, God and all, seemed like I should at least consider what he had to say,” Sam says. “It’s about how I really feel about you.”

Dean rolled his eyes, the unspoken oh-god-here-we-go sarcasm plain on his face.

“I haven’t been honest about that, and I thought…well, I thought with all the other stuff we were just talking about, I ought to be.”

Dean rolls one hand in the air, the snarky oh-do-go-on also silent.

“We’re soulmates and we’re also brothers, which is not how it usually goes. And I don’t know how you’ll take this, but I’ve held this in for a long time. I love you, Dean,” Sam says, suddenly breathless with the effort of baring his heart.

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up and stay there.

“I really do, but more than just…you know, as just a brother. It would be more accurate to say, I’m in love with you. And it not’s just because we were made as soulmates, I asked Chuck, it’s not an automatic thing. It’s…it’s you and what you mean to me, what you’ve always meant. I’ve wanted you since I was thirteen, Dean. And I’ve always hidden it, because I didn’t know what you’d do if you knew. I didn’t want to hurt you, or us, so I’ve stuffed it down. But now I think it might have hurt you more not knowing all these years.”

So there. It’s done. He’s done it. He’s actually done it. He’s been completely honest. About everything, how he feels now, how he’s always felt and then he stops talking and really sees Dean’s face. It’s gone all red and kind of sweaty, like he’s been exerting himself from not screaming maybe?

Dean gets up and leaves the kitchen without a word.

Not a single one.

His silent exit is enough of an answer or a discussion for Sam.

Sam sits and looks at the stupid salt and pepper shakers. He hears more than a few doors slamming and the Impala starting up and roaring out of the garage.

He knocks the salt and pepper shakers off the table and goes to bed before he breaks anything that’s really important. He tries not to cry, fails miserably, and then falls into a fitful sleep where he has a dream about the time between when Dean’s helicopter took off and when he saw him in the hospital. The one that Chuck had replayed for him earlier that day, it’s all so fresh in his mind that it gets mashed up with Sam’s current worries.

He’s right back there in the moment, strapped to the ambulance gurney, watching his Dad and then his brother get loaded into the helicopter. It takes off and then he’s alone. All alone, and he has to get to them, has to get to Dean—now. The raw, pulsing urgency makes him struggle against the gurney restraints and the paramedic tries to calm him down, telling him how much more time until he’s at the hospital. Yes, it’s the same one they’re going to, he swears. Sam makes him. And then he’s in the ER, and they’re working on him, and he can’t—he doesn’t want to be fixed—he just wants to know. He keeps begging for information on his family, Dean’s name in his mouth over and over again like a prayer. It is a prayer, it’s a plea, it’s a demand, he’s bargaining and begging with God or anyone who’ll listen to help.

Finally a nurse takes pity on him and comes back with the word that they’re both alive, but it’s Dean who’s really struggling. He’s finally released from treatment, Sam insists he’s good to go, signs all kinds of waivers so they’ll let him walk, no run straight to Dean’s room. He doesn’t even think of finding his Dad’s room first. He needs Dean. And he’s there, Dean’s still alive, his bigger than life big brother so damn small on the bed, so many tubes and wires connected to him. His face is a mess, they worked on his chest, it was so torn up by the demon, and blood is soaking through the new bandages. It’s been almost two hours since he last saw Dean. The longest two hours of his god damned life. He blows out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and then he finally thinks. The demon—what if there are more coming?

Then, because it’s a dream, Amara and Chuck are standing in the corner of Dean’s room, their arms crossed, like they’re angry. Sam can see a reaper hovering over Dean, reaching out for him, to take him away from Sam. He falls to his knees, clutching at his brother’s body on the bed, begging the reaper to take him instead. Amara and Chuck laugh at his pain, at his lame begging. Azazel strides into the room, and approaches the bed, he smokes out of the body Sam had gotten used to interacting with and swarms up through Dean’s nostrils. Dean’s eyes open and click to that evil yellow that Sam has never been able to see without feeling ill.

Azazel sits up in the hospital bed and rips all the equipment from Dean’s face and yanks the IV out of his arm. The blood drips down and Sam’s mouth waters, it’s demon blood now. He’s still kneeling there next to the bed so he reaches up for Dean’s arm, bringing the drip of crimson to his mouth. And he feeds, while God and Amara laugh. Azazel pets his hair and coos Sammy at him in Dean’s voice and Sam is going to vomit all the blood up.

He wakes, panting and sweaty all over, he runs to the bathroom and throws up. The nausea left over from the dream makes him think there’s going to be demon blood, but it’s just the Chuck-damned pancakes. He slumps next to the toilet, laying his head against the cool tile of the bathroom wall.

As he rinses his mouth out in one of the sinks he wonders if that was just a plain old dream, a vision, or maybe it was a memory that Chuck is supplying to aid Sam in working things out with Dean? Sam’s not sure, but reliving all that pain shakes him up enough that he seeks out Dean in the middle of the night, because nothing else seems like it would work to calm him down. He’s got to be back by now, right?

Dean is awake in his room, wearing only his hot dog pajama pants and his Send Noods socks and his noise canceling headphones. He sees Sam’s stricken face and immediately makes room for him on the bed, switching off his headphones and setting them on the bedside table.

Leaning against the door for support, Sam briefly tells him about his dream and when he finishes, Dean turns back the covers and silently invites Sam to lay down.

Sam shakes his head, refusing. He can’t, not after what happened earlier in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be right, they haven’t talked about it. He can’t even bring himself to say anything from that list of things they should have gone over. But Dean had left.

Dean raises his eyebrows when Sam shakes his head. “C’mon, dude you’re really shaken up, I can see it from here. Just get in under the covers, we both need to get some rest, maybe they’ll be coming tomorrow, right?”

Sam nods and crosses the room. As he lays down and pulls the covers over him, he can’t help himself, he has to say something. “I uh…I promise I won’t make a move or anything like that, okay?”

  


Dean doesn’t say anything, he just grunts and punches Sam in the side.

****  



	3. Chapter 3

*****

Once the lights are out and they’re both almost asleep, Dean breaks the silence. “Hey, Sammy?”

“Yeah,” Sam says.

“What’d you pray for when I was in the helicopter, what was it that Amara was trying to give us by suggesting the whole do-over thing?”

Sam sighs and rolls over onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling. Hopefully this won’t make it even worse between them. He has to be honest and answer this though, Dean deserves that at the very least, he knows that he had to confess what it was that he prayed for back then.

”I begged God or whoever was listening to keep you alive, to bring you back to me. I confessed that you were all I had in the world, that I needed you and loved you so much I couldn’t survive without you. I promised that I’d never leave you again. I swore if they brought you back that I’d love you so much that it would fix you, make you right again, make you happy like you deserved. Just us together, that’s all we ever needed or wanted. I swore I’d love you and make you happy if they brought you back to me.”

“Oh, that’s all,” Dean says with a low chuckle. “And then they lived happily ever after.”

Sam punches him in the side. “Jerk.”

“I’ve prayed for pretty much the same thing, almost every time,” Dean admits in the dark.

“Yeah?” Sam asks, all warmed up inside where he’s always wondered.

“Uh huh, yeah. Guess it’s the soulmate prayer or whatever.”

“And they didn’t answer it, Dean, not back then in that hospital, not the angels, not Chuck, none of them. Dad was the one who did, what he sacrificed, he was the one who gave you back to me that time.”

“But we didn’t live the domestic tranquil life together after that either. But hey, it wouldn’t have really suited us too well back then. Thanks for not canceling the life we lived together and bringing us all the way back there.”

“You’re welcome,” Sam says, because that thank you means almost more than he can bear.

“I’m glad it means that much to you, what we’ve built together all these years that you’d give up your dream.”

“It was a long time ago, Dean. I was just a kid really, still dreaming of cramming us into the apple pie life any way I could come up with. And besides, what I’d wish for now is really different.”

“I think we can work it out going forward, don’t you?” Dean asks.

“Depends on what you mean by work it out,” Sam hedges.

“Assuming they really do leave us alone, and we’re free, what do you want to do? I mean the skies the limit then, right? Do you want to move out, go back to school, find a woman to settle down with, have two point five kids, etcetera. Basically, I guess I need to know what you’re thinking,” Dean says.

“Honestly, I haven’t been thinking about it, not yet. But I don’t really need to,” Sam says, not finishing his sentence because he’s not sure how much to lay on Dean. All of it or some of it?

“I mean, do you want to stop hunting and leave me or what?” Dean asks.

Sam sits up and turns the bedside light on. He searches Dean’s face, it’s so open right now, and there’s so much there. He sees the worry that’s always there that Sam will leave him again, he sees the love, and there’s something new that Sam can’t figure out. “I might want to stop hunting, sooner rather than later. But no, I don’t want to leave you. Not unless you want me to.”

“You know what you said before, in the kitchen. I’m sorry about freaking out on you,” Dean says.

“That’s okay, I know it was out of left field and on top of all the other stuff, it was too much to lay on you all at once over Chuck’s leftover pancakes.”

“You’re wrong about it being out of left field, I’ve known for a long time. But I was leaving it up to you to make a move or decide or whatever. I guess I’d just about resigned myself to things between us staying the same. I was trying all this time, trying really hard to have that be okay,” Dean says.

“Me too,” Sam says, completely okay with sounding so damn breathless. “So why’d you freak then?”

“What I freaked out about was getting everything I ever wanted. That kind of thing never works out for us, right? I mean, one of us will die or worse and I just can’t…” Dean trails off.

“Dean, I asked Chuck, and he said the rules didn’t apply to us as far as us—changing things between us.”

“Chuck gave us something like an incest exemption, huh? Fuck, Sammy, you are amazing, having the balls to ask him straight out like that,” Dean says.

“Well, he was telling me to be honest with you, about everything, and I wanted to be sure, in case you used it as a reason for us not to,” Sam confesses.

“Listen, you and me, we’re meant to be or whatever, right? By definition, soulmates and all that, we were made for each other, made to last, all of that,” Dean says. Easy like it’s nothing. Like it’s not earth-shattering to Sam to hear it from him.

“Right, all of that,” Sam finally manages to say.

“Like I said, I think we can work it out going forward,” Dean says, leaning across Sam to flip off the light.

Before he can though, Sam leans up to brush his lips across Dean’s. Not pushing for anything more, but just because he thinks he can get away with this for now.

Dean smiles against Sam’s lips and presses back a little harder, insistently licking his way into Sam’s mouth. Sam moans at the feeling and he can’t be bothered to care that Dean heard that, because his brother is still kissing him, breathless and hard now, pressing him back into the pillow. Sam’s glad the light is still on so that he can see the love and lust all over Dean’s face, so open and beautiful. He’s beyond gorgeous like this.

Dean sees him looking and ducks his head into Sam’s neck. “Thought you weren’t gonna make a move,” Dean laughs into Sam’s skin, pressing soft kisses that make Sam shiver and shake. Dean’s arms come around him and hold him in place, and Sam is happy to be contained. His brother kisses his way up his neck and whispers in his ear, “We’re gonna sleep on it though, okay?”

Instead of answering, Sam reaches over and clicks off the light as Dean rearranges their positions. He spoons up behind Sam and throws an arm around his waist. His breath tickles and warms the back of Sam’s neck and it’s suddenly the most perfect night of his life. He twines his hand into the hand that Dean has snuck under the pillow and presses a kiss to the back of it.

“Good night, Dean.”

“Night, Sam.”

Sam struggles at first not to fall asleep, wanting to remember every second of this first night (hopefully it’s just the first and not only) spent in his brother’s bed. But it’s too peaceful and he feels so safe from the horrible things he’d just been dreaming about that he sinks into sleep anyway, faintly hoping to find Dean in there somewhere.

***

The next day just after they’ve finished having coffee, and Sam has had to confess to breaking the salt and pepper shakers, Amara and Chuck show up.

“So, I hear you bargained away my favor, Sam,” Amara says.

“I didn’t bargain it away, I just asked for what I really wanted, we worked it out, right, Chuck?” Sam asks.

Chuck nods and looks at Amara, a little nervously. “Yeah, we worked it out, just like I told you, Amara.”

“Well, I’m giving you a pass on that because I owe you, Sam. For trying to take Dean away from you. I didn’t understand, and now I do,” Amara says with a gracious nod of her head.

“Thanks, I accept your apology, Amara,” Sam says.

“So you guys are really leaving us alone from here on out, huh?” Dean asks.

“Indeed, that’s the agreement as I understand it, right, Chuck?” Amara asks, glaring down at Chuck.

Sam raises his eyebrows at Dean, not sure whether to be alarmed by the apparent discord.

“What, you mean Chuck isn’t ready to give up his playthings for good? What a surprise,” Dean says with a challenging glare.

“No, that’s not it, I’m not ready to say goodbye, and I wanted to give you something too, so I’m going to do this,” Chuck snaps his fingers.

Sam hears footsteps and almost falls over from the shock of who he sees in the doorway. Jack is whole and alive and walking into their kitchen.

“Why?” Sam asks Chuck in a panicked splutter.

“It wasn’t right, taking him away from you like that. It was a dick move for me to make just because you saw through my bluff. I want to say I’m sorry for putting all of you through that, but not for everything else that came before it,” Chuck says.

“Sam!” Jack yells, striding across the room and throwing himself into Sam’s arms.

Sam isn’t sure whether this is really real, or what but he soaks up the pure love pouring off of Jack. Dean joins them, enclosing them both in his strong arms, and Sam hasn’t ever bothered wanting anything as awesome as this ever before.

“Thank you, for bringing him back. I don’t know what to say besides that. Thank you,” Sam says over the top of Jack’s head, struggling to hold back a rush of grateful tears.

“And as long as you’re not messing with us, this doesn’t has to be goodbye,” Dean says.

Chuck’s smile widens, the beneficence dialing up to dangerous levels. Amara looks confused until Chuck whispers something to her.

“We’ll just say, see you later alligators,” Amara says with a little wave.

They both disappear, soundless, leaving no trace.

“You’re really here,” Dean says, hugging Jack to him tightly.

Sam wipes at his eyes seeing how happy his brother is.

“I’m really hungry,” Jack says in a muffle against Dean’s flannel.

Sam and Dean bust up laughing as Jack looks between them, and then joins in himself.

Later that night, Jack and Dean make dinner while Sam sits and watches them. He’s pretty sure he’s never been happier in his whole life. He keeps wanting to ask whether Dean is sure this is real, but he stops himself. What’s really real anyway in the scheme of things?

After dinner, they all watch a movie together in the game room. Jack falls asleep within the first half hour and Sam carries him to bed, Dean comes along to help Sam tuck him in.

“I guess coming back from the Empty wore him out,” Dean says in a whisper, smoothing the blankets over Jack’s sleeping form one last time.

“It’s so good having him here again, I can’t get over it,” Sam says as they close the door behind them.

“Hey, where you going?” Dean asks, grabbing Sam’s hand and tugging him towards his room. “I have the memory foam, we’re sleeping in there.”

“But…what about—“ Sam says.

“Sammy, if you say what about Jack, I may just have to get violent,” Dean growls, pinning Sam against the hallway wall. He pulls Sam down into a kiss that tells Sam everything. All of it, the aching, waiting, pining, years worth of it all in one kiss. Sam gives it right back and is soon pinning Dean against the opposite wall.

Dean finally breaks away and tugs Sam the rest of the way down the hall and into his room. He closes the door and locks it. Just in case.

Sam’s being pressed into the door, the only light coming through the grating at the bottom of it. And he wants to see. He stretches out an arm to flip on the light.

“Want to see you,” Sam says when Dean pauses.

Dean doesn’t answer, just goes back to Sam’s neck, biting and sucking his way down to that one spot that makes Sam’s knees practically buckle, his belly filled with a delicious swoop of desire. He manages to get his fingers working on Dean’s shirt buttons, pushing the shirt off and tugging up the hem of the t-shirt underneath. “Off, c’mon,” Sam says, sounding breathless even to himself.

With a chuckle Dean pulls his shirt off over his head and throws it to the side, his hands fall to his belt buckle. “Well, c’mon, you too.”

Sam rushes to take his shirts off, tossing them in the same direction as Dean’s had gone, but then he stops because Dean’s jeans are sliding down his hips, along with his briefs and he’s standing there naked and glorious. He turns their position around and presses Dean’s back into the door, runs his hands all over his warm skin, delighting in the sounds Dean makes. He slowly sinks to his knees, holding on to Dean the whole way down. He doesn’t ask for permission, because it’s there in the way Dean’s eyes hold his, the pleading of desire louder in them then any cry of passion.

The warmth of him, the softness overlaying the hardness, the scent of him, so earthy and salty tasting, he can’t help making an _mmmm_ sound that Dean answers with a moan. Sam takes the tip of him in to his mouth suckles several times and then looks up at Dean through his eyelashes. His brother is already wrecked, lips red and puffy from their kisses, sweat pooling in the curve of his neck, eyes blazing with some combination of emotions that Sam doesn’t have time to sort through.

  
It’s when Dean’s hand lands on the back of his head, fingers gently lacing into his hair that Sam knows this is real, in his dreams of this moment, Dean had always pushed him away, protesting or disgusted. But now, in this moment when it’s happening for real, Dean is helping it happen, he’s pulling Sam in closer, helping him take more of Dean in his mouth, pressing past the resistance in his throat. Sam struggles to breath and suck and keep his teeth covered, it’s a skill he remembers, but hasn’t kept up. But this is different, Dean lets him go at the speed he can manage, at a speed that’s good for both of them. It’s so different from any other time that he’d done this.

Dean’s hips are moving now, he’s thrusting in small movements and it’s driving Sam mad, he doesn’t want Dean to hold back. He pulls off with an awesome pop sound and looks up at Dean again. “I want it, don’t hold back. And I want to hear it too.”

He hears a thud which is Dean knocking his head into the door, and then Dean’s hips move and he’s making these sounds that Sam gobbles up with everything else Dean feeds him. It’s awesome and Sam has lost track of the last time he had a real breath of air, but he doesn’t care, because Dean is everything he needs.

Dean’s hands are on his head, pulling him off, slow and gentle. “Sammy, goddamn that was—you’re so—fuck, c’mere.” Dean pulls him up from his kneeling position, and holds him until he catches his breath and recovers a bit. It’s so tender Sam almost cries in that moment. And then Dean’s hands are tugging at Sam’s belt buckle, and he gives up in frustration, slipping one hand past the waistband.

Then it’s Dean’s hands on him, stroking him slow and maddening. “You gotta get these off, Sammy, c’mon.”

Sam fumbles at his jeans, gets them unbuckled and slid down past where Dean is still working at him, that slow and steady pace making him feel like he’s burning up from the inside out. Dean’s other hand tugs Sam’s briefs down, pausing to stroke over the curve of Sam’s ass. Finally he’s as naked as Dean is, and Dean’s still got him in hand, leading him over to his bed, they fold down onto it, Dean arranging himself between Sam’s spread legs. Still stroking in that unending slow steady pace.

“You’re so wet for me,” Dean says, looking down at what his hand is doing. Sam can’t answer, can barely breath with how good it feels. All he can do is try to press his hips up in a few thrusts that Dean stops with an arm over his hips. Then Dean’s mouth is on him, sweet and hot and just as steady and slow. Sam’s going to lose his mind.

“Dean,” Sam finally says, trying to keep the begging whine out of his voice.

Dean looks up at him and Sam feels it, he’s going to come just from that look.

“I’m going to—“ Sam groans and comes, thick stripes land on Dean’s full red lips, on his closed eyes and it’s too much and Sam will never live it down and he doesn’t care, can’t care. He surges up and kisses Dean, deep and dirty, reveling in the taste of them together in their mouths. Dean and he trade wordless sighs, it’s a wonder they survived.

“I can’t believe you,” Dean chuckles as Sam licks his face clean.

“Hey, it’s basically been twenty years of foreplay, just wait until tomorrow, then you’ll see,” Sam says, reveling in the purring hum of pleasure still coming from his brother.

“Can’t wait to find out,” Dean says, voice heavy and sated.

Sam gets up and washes at the sink, brings back a warm washcloth and gently cleans Dean’s face the rest of the way. Dean pushes Sam’s hand down to his groin and Sam cleans him up there too. “Don’t want to hear you bitching in the morning,” Sam says, his voice raspy and husky with the workout his throat got.

Dean’s no help, he’s almost passed out, so Sam arranges him under the covers with some effort and then climbs in where it’s warm. He arranges himself like Dean had last night, spooning up behind him, holding him with an arm around Dean’s waist. He sneaks his other arm under the pillow and Dean’s hand finds his. His heart thrills with the sleepy kiss Dean presses onto the back of his hand.

“So much more I wanted to—Sammy.”

“It’s okay, Dean, tomorrow, sleep now,” Sam answers, holding his brother a little bit tighter until they both fall asleep.

****

In the morning, it’s Jack who wakes them up, knocking at their door. ( _Their_ door)

“Hey guys, I’m making us pancakes,” Jack calls through the door after he discovers it’s locked.

“Great, start some coffee too, we’ll be there in a couple minutes,” Dean calls out, returning to what he was doing with his mouth.

Sam can’t answer, he’s too busy.

~The End~

*****


End file.
